Figuring out what the boy Lushlife is all about isn’t a piece of cake. With a look more Vice Magazine than The Source, a production style that sounds like DJ Premier chopping up Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach, and a flow to make you think there’s a VERY worn copy of Illmatic in his past somewhere, the Philly emcee/producere isn’t easy to pin down. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? A perfect example of these intersecting aesthetics, “In Soft Focus” takes a pastel-colored golden-era-influenced beat with a sample taken from lo-fi indie rock champ Ariel Pink and fuses it with Lush’s own flow, and then goes for the win with a verse from rising star and Slum Village member Elzhi. Sound too ambitious to work? Not on your life.

There was a promo that leaked a while back, but it didn’t include this: